Renaissance
by greyrondo
Summary: If nothing else, I want you to go on." One-shot.


Disclaimer: I don't own FFIX. However, original elements do belong to me.

This is the most coherent excerpt of a thirteen chapter fic I worked on a few summers ago. Unfortunately, like Aerith, the idea is now long dead. Please enjoy and review!

**Renaissance**

"Meridian Alexandros is dead."

This was what one out of countless pedestrians murmured delicately to himself, merely repeating the mournful sentiment broadcasted across the front pages of every newspaper in the entire city, in the entire continent. It was night and the moon was rising.

Not that there was anything to be done about that. Her death, that is. So suddenly finding the newspaper pages between his fingertips useless, the pedestrian vengefully flung the entire sheaf into the nearest trash can, and crossed the street.

She wasn't anything to him, anything at all. She was a visionary, a revolution waiting to happen, but would now never come. The chess game of politics would miss her. The world would miss her, but not time.

She had been beautiful, but she had been born with death already stirring inside of her. It's wasn't something new to him, but that didn't make her absence any less haunting.

On 9th Street looking east to the ruins of old Alexandria, hundreds or perhaps thousands of miles across the ocean's waters, a vacant lot inexplicably evaded the metropolis's insatiable swell. Until recently, of course. Now it had been purchased by some glassy-eyed land developer and it would be turned into high-rise condos or office units, depending on the zoning code.

It would be missed, certainly. It was difficult to find what was hidden inside the overgrown, dead grasses. But he had been there countless times, and he could find the cracked gravestone even in the darkest of nights. Rather, that was what he hoped. The city was never truly dark. It was as if its inhabitants were afraid of night. How long had it been since he had seen the stars?

An eternity, he thought as he found the stone and traced his fingertips over the epitaph. The writing was small, and he had to kneel on the ground to make out the weathered words.

_What you did was wrong, but you gave us all one thing… hope._

_We were all created for the wrong reason, but you alone defied our fate._

_We do not want to forget this. We want your memory to live on forever,_

_To remind us that we were not created for the wrong reason—_

_That our life has meaning._

As if to spite the passage, the abuses of rain and wind had rendered the grave nameless, but that hardly mattered. He knew whose it was, and smiled bitterly as he rose to his feet.

It was his full intent to simply walk away, but when he looked up, his vision was filled with the lifeless greys and steels of the city. The only wind was choked with soot and iron. And this little scrap of earth, the only ground that was alive in this entire kingdom of vacant glass, would be destroyed, its life ended so that its hollow shell would conform to its surroundings.

He wouldn't let this place destroy the only relic left from the world he had known.

Electricity lovingly flowed into his fingertips and shattered the stone from sheer anger. Anger at time for taking away all purpose: long ago had the royal house of Alexandria lost power because the people wanted a constitution, long ago had technology replaced magic and myth replaced history. What had been his memory was now a fairy tale told to infants—with most of his story removed, what more. He wasn't someone you told children about, unless you wanted a silver smile to haunt their nightmares.

Long ago had Zidane sacrificed himself so that Kuja could live. Forever.

"Kuja… every soul returns to Gaia after a while," he had said. "But yours… Gaia would never, ever let your soul be reborn. You don't deserve to die, Kuja, so, if nothing else, I want you to go on."

"You're a fool. You have people waiting for you. People who care about you."

"I'll see them again. In another body, in another time. Look me up, all right?"

This city had five million souls. Were Terra hovering alive above him in the sky right now, it would be enough to sate its bloodlust for a thousand years.

"Peace is but a shadow of death," he said softly, laughing to himself. "It's time to shatter this façade. Let's… liven things up a little, as they like to say in this millennium. I've collected a soul, Zidane. She died just last night. She's rather upset about this, and with that anger she's more powerful alone than the thousands who fueled my magic when I leveled Terra. And did I mention that she was the last heir to the ancient throne of Alexandria? But…it's not like she wouldn't have died anyways, of old age or whatnot. My, how time flies when you're immortal!"

Magic ached in his hands. Too long had the Angel of Death strayed from his purpose. It would ease the pain of eternity to cast Terra's magic once again.

The moon shined blue above the sky. An explosion of energy, and it turned red with the embers of Bahamut's fires. Not even pavement and steel could withstand the force of ages past.

Kuja stood anonymous in the breathtaking wreckage as the dragon's ephemeral form flitted into the darkened night. There were no lights, not anymore, but there were still no stars. The fires that smoldered burned them out. There was only the moon.

The moon, dyed scarlet red with the blood of millions.

Perfect.

"So you're alive after all, Terra," he laughed. "Do what you will, Gaia. Bring back your hero from the eternal cycle of souls. Defend yourself against Terra. Zidane, why don't you just try and fulfill my death-wish."


End file.
